


what we make of it

by Apaltornillit



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, BAMF Lance (Voltron), Mild Horror, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Sort Of, Time Travel, broganes, klangst, lance gets his lone warrior space opera, memory acquisition, there is a child...?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:33:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27583426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apaltornillit/pseuds/Apaltornillit
Summary: Keith,I’m sorry I just missed you, but I’m glad you’re safe.It’s beenTake care of Red. I’ll see you again soon. Promise.— L.Lance comes back from the dead with a whole set of mixed up memories in his head, and he knows he has to change the future. He also knows he has to do it alone. But first — Keith.After a year and a half on a whale and reeling in the wake of an intense flash of a vision, Keith wakes up in Red with nothing but his mother, his space wolf, a note, and enough rations to last the two-week trip back to the Castle of Lions.And Voltron? Voltron is struggling.They meet somewhere in the middle.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 74





	1. false deaths and resurrections

He is heavy, weighed down, and there’s a drum in his head beating to a steady rhythm of _I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive._

Opening his eyes is like pushing through a haze, but when he does —

It takes a moment to remember where he is. His vision swims in blocky shapes before him. It isn’t until he feels Red’s presence under his skin that he finds focus. He blinks up at Allura, whose eyes are bright with relief. “I’ve got him,” she says. “Yes, we’re alright.”

Is he alright? He feels as if he’s too much butter on too little bread. There’s no space inside his head, and everything is hammering at him painfully, saying _recuerda y vive, pendejo._

“Lance,” she says, but like a flood, a memory washes over him. It pulls him down, down, down, and he seizes, choking.

He’s so so far away. From her, from everyone, from everything. He sees her smile so intensely hopeful and sad as she walks into a brilliant light, heart heavy with the knowledge that he will never see her again. The light collapses, or is it a dream? 

A loud flash rings in his ears, but it doesn’t mute the overwhelming sense of failure that overtakes him.

_“Lance!”_

Sound fills the vacuum in a rush. He gasps and shoves away from her arms. He weakly trembles on his hands and knees. He feels her hands settle on his back as he catches his breath. 

_“What’s going on?”_ crackles in the spaces between his heaves. Hunk, he realizes distantly. 

Lance closes his eyes and grounds himself. He’s in Red. He just shielded Allura from deadly blast-fire. Two minutes ago, he was dead. This, he knows as an unshakeable truth.

 _“Hello?”_ says Pidge. _“Allura! Is he —?”_

Then Shiro, _“Is everything okay over there? Allura, Lance, come in.”_

Since it seems Allura won’t for him, Lance answers the comms roughly, “We’re good. We’ll see you in a bit.” His throat feels dry, but his mouth tastes like copper, and he swallows, still feeling out of place in his body.

 _“If you’re sure,”_ comes Hunk’s hesitant response.

“Lance,” Allura says quietly. He turns to face her again as they both ignore the chatters of the other paladins. “You — you were —”

He pushes himself up in his seat, catches her hand in his. She’s shaking a little bit, or maybe he is. He can’t tell. “You saved me.” 

She searches his face. “Are you alright? You couldn’t breathe. For a moment, I thought you would — _again_ —”

“It’s okay, Princess. It’s okay. I’m okay.”

She nods miserably. 

_Recuerda y vive,_ pounds in his skull. 

_I’m trying!_ he thinks back angrily before shoving himself up but failing to stand. His head spins dangerously. “Don’t tell them,” he mumbles to her, desperate enough to stop the team from knowing that he was more than injured. “Please don’t.”

Her lips thin, but she nods in understanding. “I will not.”

“No one,” he emphasizes.

As if from a great distance, he hears, “Lance needs a healing pod! Retreat back to the Castle at once,” and slips into unconsciousness.

There is a great horizon before him, deep purple and blue, writhing beneath his feet just as much as it is steady. The stars shine all around him, and none of them are familiar. He walks, and his steps don’t even echo. It’s as if he has no presence at all, and, as far as his eye can see, he is alone. The singular entity of this corner of the universe. 

“Where am I?” he asks aloud, but no sound emerges from his lips. A star bursts above his head, and meteorites shower around him. They make delicate plink noises as they land like glass rain. From the burst, a ring of dust and ice and life forms and takes an indiscernible but definite shape. It stretches and pulls, pulses, and then falls toward him.

Strangely, he is unafraid and accepting.

He watches it approach and closes his eyes before it hits him — but hit him it does, and a dry heat consumes him from seemingly the inside out. Pictures flash through his mind chaotically, like a photo book was dumped over his head. Images fleetingly pass through his mind’s eye without rhyme or reason, but the recurring message is startlingly sharp.

_Recuerda y cambia todo._

He opens his eyes to the purple field, heaving.

“Lance?”

He turns around and sees Shiro. “Hi,” he says, and suddenly he can hear himself speak, breathe — blink even. 

Shiro steps closer to him hesitantly. He looks ethereal in the purple light amid the silver falling stars. “What are — what are you doing here? This is the clearest I’ve ever seen you.” 

Oh yes, Lance had almost forgotten. The hazy dreams, the distant call Shiro shouts through Black, only to not remember in waking. 

Lance shrugs, turns his gaze back up to the sky above him, frowns, and then looks at the sky beneath his feet. “Same as you, probably.” He struggles to sort out everything that’s been put into his head, almost like something out of the Matrix, but what he does know is that he has a job to do, so he isn’t worried. Not yet. If he was gifted this chance, that means he’s going back. It means _Shiro_ goes back.

“I _died,_ Lance.”

He sighs. “I knew it,” but the words don’t come out vindicated even though he wants to be, just sad and tired. “The other guy out there’s not you anymore. You were calling me — I’m sorry I didn’t understand before. Well, I guess we can be spirit buddies or whatever.”

In his periphery, Shiro jerks. “Lance,” he starts with a dawning realization on his face.

“Don’t worry,” Lance placates, facing Shiro again. He smiles in a way he hopes is comforting. “It’s not over for us.”

He holds out his hand and waits for the starry rain to fall into his palm. It comes like it was aiming for him. It burns something fierce but _alive._ “Let’s go home,” he says. “I’ll bring you home. I promise.” He closes his fist around the star and surges up.

  
When he wakes, it is quiet. He can tell he’s in the medbay by smell. The cryopod opens, and warm air greets him. 

Slowly, he opens his eyes. It’s hideously bright, and he nearly falls out of the healing pod in his attempts to get out on unsteady feet.

The commotion invites Coran in. “Oh dear,” he says when he sees the predicament, and bustles over to help him sit. “How do you feel, Number Three?”

Awareness and memories ram into him like he’s some sort of punching bag, which sucks, and they’re all so confusing and _so much_ and he needs time to sort through them, but once he does that, he knows he will have to speak to Allura and Coran. Lances focuses on Coran’s mustache and the feel of the velvety shoulder of the suit the man is wearing under his hand as he stabilizes himself. “I’m fine,” he answers absently. He grimaces. “How long was I out?”

“Not long at all. Just half a varga,” Coran says concernedly. “The others are still debriefing.”

“Do they know —?” _Do they know that I died?_

“The Princess keeps her promises.”

“And you?” Lance asks warily. 

Coran sighs. “I will not expose you, my lad. But will you let me ask why? This is something they would care to hear.”

Lance rubs his chest with his free hand. “I think I had a vision. A lot of visions, actually. I need time to think, and — what did you tell them?”

“That you had a severe concussion and fractured your ribs,” says the Altean bluntly, “which you did. In fact, I would count yourself lucky that it wasn’t more grievous.”

“I died,” Lance says. “Is that not extreme enough?”

Coran wilts. “I did not mean to minimize your pain,” he says gently. “Only to say that you are miraculously durable, if not for your head wound.”

Lance reaches up to touch the back of his head. He doesn’t remember blood or anything, but he does feel remarkably tender there.

“It’s alright,” he says. “Sorry, I’m just wound up right now, I guess.”

“Do you wish to talk about your visions?”

Lance shakes his head. His palm burns hot, but when he looks down at it, there’s nothing there. “Not yet. And you can’t tell anyone that I’ve had them yet. It’s important.”

“I won’t,” promises Coran. “But for now, I do believe you need your rest. Some food, perhaps? While your body heals.”

His mouth is still dry. He’d kill for a glass of Guarapo, something sweet to dispel the bitter taste of the future from his tongue, but he’d settle for water. He struggles to stand, but once Coran helps him find his balance, he gets his bearings and, if a little wobbly, walks. He thanks Coran, who clearly wants to hover, and makes his way to the kitchen, feeling nostalgic for the Castle halls for some reason, as if he’s been gone a long time.

The trek takes doubly as long as it should, since his body feels sore and stretched thin. Luckily, the others are still in their meeting and aren’t expecting Lance to be up and about.

He snags a pink fruit from a bowl on top of the table and fills up a large glass with water. He downs it and has to refill before making his way back to his room. He munches on the fruit, too tired to care that it dribbles down his skin. 

The hallway is silent, and it troubles him. He pauses outside his room. Keith’s is one door down, between his and Hunk’s, and collecting dust. Miserable all of a sudden, Lance enters his room and sets down all his things before slipping out of the cryosuit. 

Being the red paladin for Shiro, or whoever this new Shiro is, is nothing like being the red paladin for Keith, who is missing and uncommunicative. Being dead was less climactic than he thought it might be. Being alive is less exciting than he hoped it’d be.

He tosses himself onto his bed, spares a thought towards showering, but is ultimately too tired to get up again. He drains half his water and closes his eyes as soon as his head hits his pillow.

 _Recuerda,_ whispers in his ear again, so close it might be tangible.

But remember what? All the images that he had seen come rushing towards him. They’re scrapbook memories, like all the brightest and darkest bits have been saved, catalogued, rinsed, and shoved at him.

From what he can tell, they are his memories, but another him, a future him. It isn’t as unmooring as it seemed at first; after all, they’d met an alternate universe before, had traveled throughout the infinitudes of the cosmos, and are currently in a giant space castleship where they pilot robotic lions that speak to them telepathically. So no, future memories are not that out there. Just a little out there. 

The future is not pretty, and though anxiety ripples through him, he finds himself slipping into exhausted sleep. 

  
He wakes up early, having gained more insight than he could ever have imagined and yet — the strongest feeling sitting on him is loss. He feels slow and sad and unmotivated, but there’s no _time._ In an effort to do something productive, he strips his bed and changes the sheets before he retreats to the showers. He scrubs down until his skin is pink, and then goes through his skin routine on autopilot. 

He then goes to the kitchen, where he hears Hunk busily making something that smells warm and heavenly. He finds Pidge already seated at the table, hair fluffy, eyes tired and squinting at her computer. He stops right before the door, wondering if he should go in, but reason wins over. It’s not like they’ll be unhappy to see him, not when he was just in a healing pod the night before.

“Good morning,” he says to them, doing his best to rid himself of his hesitance.

“Lance!” Hunk spins around, and, startled, Pidge nearly falls out of her seat. “You’re up!”

He hugs Lance gingerly, carefully, a spatula in one hand. When he lets go, Pidge punches him in the arm. “Ow!”

“You idiot,” she scolds. “You freaked us the fuck out.” She hugs him then too briefly. 

Lance pats her back with a smile. “I guess I deserved that.”

She huffs and returns to her chair. “Hunk’s making berry pancakes. The radioactive kind.”

“Hey! It all burns off over fire!”

“Sounds fake, but okay.”

Lance laughs and takes a seat. He looks at Pidge and sees someone else for a split second: her face tight with a grimace as she works, frustration pulling at her brow, someone older, someone less joking. Lance blinks out of it and turns away before Pidge can set narrowed eyes on him. He toys with his water glass, but it isn’t long before Hunk finishes the pancakes, and fake Shiro, Allura, Coran, and _Lotor_ enter.

They all take seats around the table. “It is good to see you healthy, Lance,” says Allura brightly.

Lance offers her a strained smile. “Yes, it’s good to be back.”

“You were hardly gone,” Lotor says with a friendly grin, and Lance wants to punch his teeth in and strangle him and get him away from Allura. He stays seated. 

There’s an empty seat to his left, and he is once again reminded of Keith, who at the very least may have listened to his worries about Lotor and Shiro without automatically dismissing them. 

He resists the urge to grimace and quips, “I fulfilled my knight-in-shining-armor purpose. Guess I can die happily now.” He grins, all teeth, but Lotor doesn’t seem taken aback, not like Allura and Coran, so Lance can trust that Allura did not tell Lotor thankfully. “Anyway,” he says around a mouthful of pancake, “Coran, do you need help with the pods today?”

“That would be wonderful, thank you,” replies the man, and it isn’t really out of the ordinary for Lance to hang around Coran and do cleaning. It isn’t out of the ordinary for Lance to be out of useful things to do. 

After breakfast, which is as awkward as it always is these days, Lance makes his escape to the medbay with Coran. He takes one last fleeting look at Shiro, winces at the image of Keith carrying his empty body back to Black, and leaves the room.

Coran doesn’t press, for which he’s grateful. He passes him a cloth and some pleasant, if strong, cleaning spray. They wipe down the pods in silence.

Lance listens to the squeak of the glass under his towel and starts when Coran breaks the still atmosphere. “I had a son, you know this already.”

He turns to face the Altean, who scrubs vigorously at a spot on the counter.

“Much like you. Boisterous, always with a story to tell, but thoughtful, and, at times, very careful.” Coran sighs and gives up on the stubborn stain. He looks up at Lance. “He was always thinking, for all that he spoke. But it was when he had plans that the words quieted. Lance, dear boy, what is troubling you?”

“I have to leave,” Lance bursts from his throat, and he didn’t even know until he said it, but now that it’s out, it feels right. “There are things I have to do, and I don’t have time.”

Solemn, Coran sags, but he makes no effort to stop him. “For how long do you think?”

“I don’t know. Months, maybe.”

“When will you leave?”

“As soon as I’m packed. I’m taking Red, but she’ll be back safe sooner than later, I swear.”

Coran discards the towel, dusts his hands, and takes Lance’s arms in his hands. “I am proud of you, Number Three. I will pack provisions for you.”

Profoundly grateful and sad, Lance tears up a little. “Thanks, Coran.”

“I am disheartened to see you go, but I will not stand in your way when your mind is so made up. You have good instincts, so I will trust you will do what is right.” He takes a shaky breath. “Come back home to us.”

Lance nods once, firm. “I will.” On his way out, he turns back one last time, “Oh, and Coran. Be careful, okay? You know who I’m talking about.” After all, Lance hadn’t made his dislike of Lotor unknown. 

  
Finding time with Allura is harder. Lotor is nearly always around her, so he busies himself with shoving his belongings into a bag small enough he can carry on his shoulders. He has an extra under armor, a set of normal clothes, something to sleep in, essential toiletries, and a thick jacket. Surreptitiously, he deposits his bag in Red, where a bag stuffed with non-perishable food sits as a farewell gift from Coran.

At the top of the control panel, he has only one photo: the team, smiling, happy. The Olkarians had taken their photo and made copies, and it’s his favorite because they’re all there. He touches it gently with his fingers and, with Red’s gentle prodding, leaves the cockpit. 

Sure enough, he runs into Allura on her way to Blue. “Just the one I was looking for,” he announces. “Got a few minutes?”

“Oh, Lance. I — Yes. Can I help you? Are you feeling alright?”

He gestures her into Red, and once they’re away from prying ears, he frowns and says, “I have to leave, Princess. I had a pretty serious premonition.”

She eyes his bags. “And you’re taking the red lion.”

“Only temporarily. If things go to plan, she’ll be back in your care within the month.”

“A month,” she repeats, turning a piercing gaze to him. “Lance, what are you doing? This reckless behavior is something I would have expected from Keith, but —”

“I’m not asking for permission,” he says without wavering. “I’m sorry. I just want you to know. I’ll be back when I’m done, but I’m doing this for the cause. I’m doing this for us.”

She’s still staring at his face, so Lance makes a valiant effort to wipe all of his distress from it and smiles. 

“I swear this is the right thing to do.”

“Tell me,” she implores. “What urges you so? How can you leave? We need Voltron. Your duties as a Paladin have the utmost importance.”

“I’m going where I’m needed.”

“And Voltron needs its red paladin.”

Lance’s gut twists uncomfortably. “You’ll have one. But not for a month. We’ll be okay. Things are sort of quiet right now anyway.”

She exhales sharply. “How can you be so sure that what you’re doing is right?”

Lance studies her. “Do any of us?

Allura’s head turns to the left, towards Blue. She seems to listen for a moment, then two. Finally she nods. “You will stay safe,” she orders. “No unnecessary risks. Not like — Not like yesterday.”

“Nothing unnecessary,” he promises.

  
The thing about dinners is that since Keith’s absence, no one shows up regularly. But he goes. It’ll be warm food and a chance to see the team’s faces one last time. This day has already felt like an eternity, but dinner is the last hurdle.

Coran whipped up some interesting food goo and an Altean fruit juice that actually tastes okay, but luckily Hunk also brought out some leftovers. Allura doesn’t join them, and neither does Lotor. Shiro shows up but doesn’t stay long.

Lance watches Hunk and Pidge interact and feels a little wistful, a little lonely, and more than a little regretful, but when he bades goodnight, he feels in his bones that leaving is the right choice, though he can feel Coran’s heavy gaze on his back as he leaves.

This will be his last night on the Castle for a long time. He changes into the softest things he owns and burrows back into his blankets. He sets an alarm for a few hours later, and he’s asleep within minutes.

He gets up early, before even those who get up at sunrise even think about getting up. He goes to the armory and straps on his gear. He passes by the observatory, lights all off. He moves silently, not wanting to risk waking anyone. It’s about three-thirty by earth standards, in that sweet spot where hopefully Pidge has just gone to bed and before the Alteans wake. 

Something shifts in the dark. Lance regulates his breathing, cursing the white armor. It’s Shiro, the fake one. The one that doesn’t seem to sleep. He’s standing very still, face obscured by shadow. Lance can’t tell if he can see him or not. Bracketed by starlight and twisting metal, it seems like a mockery of his dreamscape.

He doesn’t know how long he just stands there, waiting. His muscles hurt, and his heart thrums in his chest. He breathes so shallowly, his head feels light. 

Then, very slowly, Shiro moves. Head turning first, body following, as he goes down the hall, hopefully to his quarters, feet unnaturally steady and heavy.

Lance exhales and books it to the hanger, not even sure why he was seized with such an unsettling feeling and the urgency to hide. 

Coran had the foresight to leave Red’s open. He sends him a silent prayer in gratitude. 

Her eyes turn on when he comes in, having already sensed his intent to fly. He walks right past Blue, and Red lets him in quietly. None of the other lions stir. As quiet as a giant moving machine possibly can, they lift off and shoot into space. 

He can hear Red’s question in his mind. “We’re getting Keith back first,” he answers, “and lucky for you, I just so happen to know where that stupid mullet is.” 

Unfortunately for him, getting Keith is only the beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so a disclaimer: i have never seen voltron, and i probably will never, but i was somehow sucked into reading some stuff here on the archive and now i have feelings abt it. All my knowledge is from fics, so pls forgive me if i make errors, and feel free to offer advice. Also, this will not have bashing in it, but there will be tensions and things to work through for the team!! Thanks for reading!


	2. waxing gibbous and the water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He takes a step further from the shoreline. Then another. The ocean is beckoning. Keith follows.

It isn’t too bad at first, once the burning itch to get off the whale to continue the mission has passed. At first, there was the painful sense of failure. At first, there was nothing. 

Keith has been stranded for almost two years. He’s not unused to being alone. His life is marked by this solitude. But he isn’t alone this time.

It was awkward in the beginning, with his mother. They had no basis for interaction, and no matter how much a piece of him wanted a mother, another louder piece recoiled from her affection. 

But it’s been years now, and they, if not as mother and son, at least care for each other as friends. Maybe it’s the shared trauma.

In the vast emptiness of space, in this warped realm, there is nothing to do but survive and grow. In this sense, he supposes they’re lucky. The threats are predictable enough, the atmosphere is breathable, and the body of the whale supports some major plant growth. So, they train together to stay fit and on their toes, and they garden. They get to sit and talk and eat together in their makeshift shaft that looks more like a house each passing day. They even replanted the finger-like glowing plants to serve as a light source in the dark. They have a _dog._ Wolf. Whatever.

So now, it’s homey. He doesn’t have to wake up at the crack of dawn to train except when he wants to. He has space to collect some cool rocks and mushroom-like things. Krolia always sniffs when he brings them in, but after, she’ll put them in the hard green ground, and within a fortnight, they will be big and edible. Sometimes, she brings in a rock of her own to add to the collection. 

So yeah, it’s not too bad. Or it wasn’t — 

And then there’s the stress that somehow circles back to them once they’ve found satisfaction in each other. They’ve failed in obtaining the Galran super weapon. They’re stuck waiting on a glorified sentient rock to drift closer to the rift so they can continue the mission. 

But the parts that hurt are the visions that strike them during the solar flares. They are the only things he can’t get used to, and it’s because they hurt his heart more than his body, and when they happen, both he and Krolia are out of commission, which means they have to rely on Cosmo to fend off potential predators.

They get the visions often, and it’s always debilitating. It’s strange enough on its own, but for the past two months, there’s been an unmistakable break in the pattern, and it’s disorienting in a different way. He is no longer related to the scene in some way, but is an outsider looking in. 

It starts with a dream.

He’s in the dark, in blinding pain, and every fiber of his being is yelling _WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP —_

He feels an intense panic from Red, an overwhelming sense of dread, a loud despair that pierces him so strongly that he awakens with a gasp.

He waits in silence for a beat, then two, willing his breath to slow. There’s nothing here. Just him and his mother and Cosmo in a small hut on a space whale. It’s never quite dark here, and that’s enough for him to latch onto to calm his uneasy nerves. 

Then the worry sets in. Was it just a dream? Was it something more? Keith hasn’t connected with Red in a very, very long time, and is it even possible out here?

But this panicked rage isn’t the first time Red’s felt like this. No — the last time Keith felt this desperation was when Keith himself was about to die. And Keith isn’t the red paladin anymore, so that means —

Lance.

A tremble starts in his fingers, so he clenches his fists to quell it. There’s this insatiable feeling in his chest that says, _if you don’t fix this right now, it can’t be fixed._

_A common feeling for Galra,_ Krolia had told him. _Galrans are by nature instinctive and driven by immediate need rather than rationality._

 _You must temper yourself,_ she had told him.

So he focuses on the feel of his nails putting pressure in his palm, the sound of the lumbering breaths of Cosmo by his feet, the shape of Krolia’s figure in the dark. 

It was just a dream, he tells himself. He misses them, and he’s anxious to get a move on. That’s all. 

He lays back down and closes his eyes, ignoring the vice grip around his heart telling him to fight.

And then, the visions start.

  
  


There is a boy. He stands on a beach, toes digging into fine white sand, and staring out at angry cerulean blue water and a burning skyline. He looks weighed down by some deep and terrible sadness, but his eyes are dry with resignation. He hears something from out across the water. 

Keith waits, letting the ocean lap at his feet, which are bare. If he concentrates hard enough, he thinks he can feel like how the boy does. Like there’s something there. Something big. Something dangerous. Something he wants. There’s the calm knowledge that if he walks into the water right now, he won’t come back out. 

Keith shudders and shakes off the feeling, taken aback by the thought. He peers closer at the kid. Does Krolia know him? He’s small, that’s for sure. Wavy hair, glinting red and gold in the evening sun. Blue eyes. A familiar pointed nose. A down-turned mouth. A grim determination settled over his features.

Someone in the memory, a voice he can’t see, says —

  
  


When he comes to, he’s confused. “Did you see that?” he heaves, sort of breathless, turning his head to face his mother. “That wasn’t mine.”

Krolia, who is already sitting up, furrows her brow with a wince. “Nor mine. I did not know the quantum abyss could do that.”

Keith purses his lips in thought. “If it can compress time, why not space, right?” He thinks he knows who it is, but is it just his own worry he’s projecting? 

He thinks about the water and that strong call. Did he go in? Surely not.

  
  


The next vision that comes without warning a few days later. _This is the same night as the first vision,_ he realizes.

The sun sits right on the horizon. It won’t sink. There’s a prevailing emotion he can’t place, but it’s so encompassing Keith would almost call it his own.

_“Leandro!”_

The voice is hazy, far away. The water is right here. Keith takes the time to look closer at the boy, at Leandro. Yes, the shape of his eyes, nose, lips — everything is the same. The knobbly wrists, golden skin, long eyelashes. A smattering of freckles, sun spots.

Keith drinks in the image. It’s not the Lance he remembers, but it’s close enough. He cares for his mother, but it’s been two years since he’s seen another face.

It’s not his Lance, but it’s similar. It’s not and it is. The look on his face reminiscent of the one Keith’s Lance gets when he doesn’t know anyone is looking. Quiet. Thinking. Serious.

  
  


Then the moment passes, and Keith is on the ground in their shack, disoriented. 

“That was Lance,” is the first thing Keith says. “Leandro,” he repeats, curling his mouth around the name. He’s never really thought about what Lance’s actual name is, but Leandro fits. It’s pretty, the way the voice in the dream said it. Soft.

“The Blue Paladin,” Krolia infers. 

“Red now,” Keith muses. 

“Were you close?” Krolia asks once.

Keith shrugs. “Yes and no. We apparently had a rivalry that ended up becoming a real one. We were both stubborn, a bit too hot-headed… I don’t know. By the time I had to lead… I don’t know. We worked really well together once we put all that aside.”

She nods. “Perhaps you miss him.” She gives him a teasing smile.

He flushes. “I miss all of them.” 

He thinks of Lance, he thinks _show me more,_ thinks _let me in,_ thinks _show me who you are,_ thinks _I want to know you._

She hums. “Let’s go over some more exercises. Your form needs work.”

And he grumbles and gets up.

  
  


And so it goes. Intermingled with their own memories and futures, there is Lance. A constant, a mystery Keith can’t quite solve and isn’t given more clues for. He looks at every single detail he can think of, from the oversized clothes that drape over Lance’s slim figure as if to mask how thin, to the angry red sun that refuses to dip below the ocean. The sand beneath his feet is more broken shell, loose stone, and colorful bits of plastic than the beautiful beaches he remembers Lance lauding. The Lance here isn’t wearing shoes, and his shorts end above his knees, so Keith can see the mottled bruising over them, like he falls a lot.

He even looks the best he can at his hands, at the areas beyond what his eyes can see, but the memory limits him to this moment. There is only Lance and the water and lost time. A distant urgency, a compelling sadness.

If he grows more aggressive in training, Krolia doesn’t say anything. She has him meditate with her in the mornings and evenings, and he goes because it makes him feel more connected to her even if it doesn’t ground him.

It continues for _two whole months._ Maybe even more. Days are strange here. But no matter what he does, hammered in his head is _Lance._ Lance, who is a child with baby fat, who carries this relentless sorrow, who — wants to die, maybe. 

Keith pauses in his squat in their makeshift garden, puts down the root in his hands, and thinks about that.

  
  


Maybe if they were given visions of Shiro, Pidge, Hunk, or even the Princess and Coran, Keith would want to see their faces too. He does, of course, want to see them and misses them, but he feels like Lance is dangling in front of his nose, just out of reach, and the more and more he sees of this sad child who is in every iteration alone, the more he wants to see Lance, if only to know if that kid is still in him.

It isn’t as if Lance isn’t interesting without all this that Keith wasn’t privy to. It isn’t as if Lance wasn’t already demanding Keith’s attention, even when he wasn’t trying. Maybe especially then.

Maybe he sees him because he thinks about Lance too much. He certainly sees Lance more than he sees even his own father in these visions now. 

It’s hard to see Lance without laughter. He’s always associated Lance with fun and games. For all that he knows there’s more to him than that, he’s never thought about how thoroughly darkness has carved into his life too. Even if he doesn’t know _why_ precisely, he can feel Lance’s grief tangibly.

“You are troubled,” Krolia surmises once they nurse away their headaches with some mashed grit. 

“I don’t know why we’re seeing Lance so much,” he says in response.

“It is peculiar,” she agrees, “but maybe it’s a sign that things are changing, or that it’s important to understand him more.”

He frowns. “But is it important?”

“Well, you and I have learned quite a bit about each other, wouldn’t you say? And I think that cultivating our relationship is important.”

“Important for what, though?”

“For us, of course,” she says. “But I suppose I see your confusion. Why are we important in the grand scheme of things? Why is this vision of the blue paladin so important? It is difficult to know for sure, but the universe finds order in chaos, builds rules and patterns we can follow. Maybe this is a sign that we will have many interactions with him in the future.”

“We haven’t seen _his_ future though,” he responds, trying to mask his worry as if he hasn’t obsessed over this fact for hours. “Not like we have our own. Just this one instance of his past, and it lasts maybe a few minutes. It’s just — he’s so different now than here.”

She huffs a laugh and sighs. “Look, in the time we’ve known each other, wouldn’t you say that you’ve changed too?”

“Yes.” It’s been nearly two years. A lot’s happened since then. He wonders how much the others have changed. 

Krolia hums. “I researched Voltron extensively, you know,” she says, unsheathing her knife and sharpening it in precise movements. “Before earth. But the Blue Lion in particular.”

Keith nods from the floor. It makes sense; she was stationed to protect Blue after all.

“In legend, it is said in theory that the Blue Lion is most accepting of new paladins, but this is slightly misleading, I think. All the lions are quite picky, as I’m sure you’re aware. Black, the most, and for good reason, and Red is most strenuous to fly, but it is Blue that is disproportionately difficult to master considering its easy acceptance.”

“Why’s that?”

“Water,” murmurs Krolia, pausing her movements and seemingly weighing the knife in her palm, “is adaptable, of course, but does not yield. They are equally mercurial, equally deadly, equally difficult to tame. It is only that fire is faster than water. Water erodes slowly, but that does not make it less destructive.”

Keith frowns. It’s not as if he had never considered the elements attributed to their lions as more than trivial, but still, this is more than he expected. _Adaptable._ “Lance had the most bayard forms out of all of us,” he offers. “Last I saw anyway. They were all guns, but he still got them the fastest.”

Krolia shrugs as if it is no matter to her, and it isn’t really. 

“So does this mean that your first lion is your forever lion? You can never fully be a paladin for another lion?”

His mother’s lips curl upwards for a moment. “Of course you can. People change, as do the lions. I mean to say this theory holds merit. And it is _only_ a theory. You are, after all, only the second generation of paladins. But once mastered, you keep the skill, no?” She gives him a sly look. “My little flame.”

“Krolia,” he says gruffly.

She chuckles and thankfully lets it go. “Your fire is steady now. You have tempered yourself, found balance,” she says. “You no longer are in danger of burning too bright. All this aside, you yourself have had a bond with the Blue Lion. Would you not consider yourself capable of change?”

Keith considers this. Perhaps this is true too. He’s definitely — less on edge. That much he can recognize. He almost feels comfortable in his body. He thinks back to living in the shack in the desert, about Blue’s call. “So what does it mean that I piloted the Black Lion? I did really terribly, actually. Really.”

She goes back to sharpening her blade. “I’m sure your team does not agree with that.” She pins him with a glance. “I have seen snippets of your past. Family like that, born in strife and nurtured with love, does not abandon easily.” 

Keith watches something sad come over her face, but the moment passes, and she continues.

“Notoriously picky, the Black Lion. It doesn’t choose lightly, Keith.” 

“I left, though.” The words feel heavy on his tongue. 

“We are beginning to see your past teammates in visions,” she says slowly. Except that isn’t quite true. It’s only Lance. “I think you will see them again, and when you do, you will have another choice. You are different now.”

The thought is striking. He wants to get off of this whale for multiple reasons. They are in the middle of a mission, for one, and an important one no less. He wants to see everyone again. He wants to help the war effort as long as he is able to.

But this is also nice, living here with his mother. The food is a little suspect, and it’s a bit bleak, and he misses his team, misses Shiro… but there’s something nice about settling, about feeling loved by his mother. Is that selfish? Yes, undoubtedly. Is it okay to be?

That, he can’t answer. 

He wants to stay.

He wants to leave.

He _has_ to leave.

A sharp pain lances through his head, and he gasps. Krolia clutches at her head too.

 _Quiznak,_ twice in a day? 

The vision comes slower, thick like molasses. Lance again. He wants to know why, but soon, he loses himself in the vision.

There is no one but Lance. 

He’s standing on the beach with grief the size of the moon. The water is calling to him. And behind him in the distance, a voice —

_ “Leandro! ¿Dónde estás? Leandro!” _

This is the clearest he has heard either of these calls, and even though he knows nearly no Spanish, he knows it asks,  _ where are you?  _

And maybe he’ll get his answer. This is the first time they see more than a few minutes. And he knows because Lance _moves._

 _No,_ thinks Keith immediately. _Don’t do it._ Even though he knows it won’t work, he reaches for Lance. His arms go right through him.

Lance ignores the voice and Keith’s silent pleads and keeps walking, tiny feet leaving no imprints in the wet sand.

Lance knows how to swim, he reassures himself. He has lived on this beach his whole life, but above this, he can feel Lance’s belief that soon, they will leave it. After Marco — after _Isabel_ —

The thought fades as quickly as it comes. They’re up to their knees, salty water lapping coldly up their thighs.

 _What happened?_ Keith wants to ask him. _What are you doing?_ He receives no answer.

He takes a step further from the shoreline. Then another. The ocean is beckoning. Keith follows.

They submerge. The waves crash over his head, and everything is quiet and dark and pulling down

down

_down._

He can’t breathe. He can’t see. In this moment, he _is_ Lance. His small body scrambles for leverage on the reef, but all it does is slice his palms as the water pulls him down and away. His heart beats so loud in his ears, his lungs are screaming at him, he can’t find purchase, and everything around him is dark and cold and then there’s a terrific roar like the crash of water breaking over his head, a rumble starting in his bones and shaking his core and —

A face in the water looks back at him. 

Keith blacks out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for your lovely comments 🥺🥺I definitely appreciate all of them! also reassured that i don't necessarily have to watch the show
> 
> i hope you all are doing well!! i hope you enjoyed this chapter :)


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